


Acceptable

by tiniestdormouse



Category: Pandora Hearts
Genre: Alternate Universe, Family, Family Feels, Family Member Death, Gen, Grief/Mourning, M/M, Multi, Polyamory
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-02
Updated: 2016-01-02
Packaged: 2018-05-11 06:26:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,682
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5616853
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tiniestdormouse/pseuds/tiniestdormouse
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Each day passes and the pain grows less. AU with Jack/Lacie/Levi. This is a group marriage, not a threesome. </p><p>Originally written for the PH Fanfest.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Acceptable

 

He brushed his hair but never got it right. Too long, too fine, always gotten tangled somehow in the night in ways he couldn’t control unless — of course— he had a servant smooth it down and braid it tight before bed. He got into the habit of braiding his hair over the years, rather than cutting it—such a pompous, bourgeois act to do, having servants, ordering them to do petty little things like maintain one’s appearance.

Jack Vessalius tossed the brush aside, suddenly disgusted. Even his frustration seemed petty and minor and recognizing it made him feel even more disgusted with himself.

The door behind him cracked open as the maid brought him breakfast (another habit now, taking meals in his rooms — he didn’t appreciate company as he had once, especially in the mornings.) She noticed the brush in the corner and arched an eyebrow; he gave a sheepish shrugs like a clever child caught doing something they should not, and then let her take the brush after pouring out his tea. He let his eyes close as her thin hands worked their way through his locks.

There was a song Jack remembered, and the tune danced in his thoughts, one that Lacie had always sung when she rose from bed, stood before the bureau to start her morning routine. An early riser, he usually woke when he noticed the bed feeling colder and she laughed to see the state of his tangled hair. She braided his hair, weaving the strands into a queue that snaked its way down his spine like a second tail.

“Can’t even tie back your own hair, you impossible boy,” came the gentle mocking voice from memory and a tightness in his chest formed.

“Enough,” he said, softly, and the maid stopped. Jack left his hair long and loose, covering his shoulders like the curtain of mourning he had worn since the day he found out Lacie died.

***

Downstairs in the children’s parlor, its occupants had already breakfasted and the children were already getting ready for their morning lessons. History, penmanship, and mathematics first, followed by music and arts, languages, and riding in the afternoon. Jack entered the room to see Vincent giving a laughing cry as Gilbert, ever the trouble-maker, ran after him wielding a bit of charcoal from his drawing kit.

“I’m gonna smudge ya!” Gilbert and Vincent circled the table and Vincent gave a little screech as he bounded toward Jack’s open arms.

“Master, save me!”

“Ahoy there, my little servant!” Jack scooped Vincent into his arms and the child buried his head in the man’s neck. Vincent really wasn’t his servant at all, but since he requested to be Jack’s in an imitation of his older brother, Jack indulged the child’s whims. “Gil, you’re not bullying your little brother, are you?”

“Nope,” Gilbert crossed his hands behind his back to hide the evidence. “I did nuthin’.”

“Grammar, Gilbert,” corrected the other adult in the room. “No, I didn’t do anything.” His mild rebuke only gone so far, however, considering that Levi Baskerville had his feet propped on the dining room table and was picking at his teeth with a toothpick.

“I tried to stop them,” Aly muttered beside him, primly wiping her mouth on a napkin. “They didn’t listen.”

“Tell ‘im he can’t go smudgin’ me,” came the mumble from the vicinity of Jack’s collarbone.

No matter how Jack usually felt waking up every day, that cloud gradually lessened upon seeing his family. Gilbert and Vincent were the latest additions, two wayward scamps that he had found on the streets about the year ago. His carriage nearly ran over Gilbert when a gang of thugs had pushed him into the road. The orphan had been begging alone, pleading for others to give him money to help his sick brother, and Jack, having his own experience living on the streets until Lacie found him, immediately sympathized with the boys’ flight (yes, adopting these children would be something Lacie would’ve done…). They took to the Baskerville household immediately, but still retained a roughness to their speech and manner that, while at their current age was endearing, though Jack realized that these commoner traits had to be trained out of them sooner or later.

“Young Gilbert, what do you say?” he asked in a mock stern tone.

“Sooooorry, Vince. I promise not to smudge ya.” Jack held out a hand for the charcoal and Gilbert turned it over. Putting it back into Gilbert’s drawing satchel, he lowered Vincent to the ground and the boy scrambled back to his seat.

“Where’s Alice?” Jack leaned over Levi, to removed his boots from the table so he could straighten up and give his customary peck on the lips.

“Upstairs still. The governess told me that she’s locked the door to her rooms again.” He gave Jack a knowing look and he nodded.

“I’ll get her down for lessons.”

“Cheers, love.” A momentary shadow passed Levi’s expression-even when he laughed or smiled, Jack spotted the hints of misery flickering behind those violet eyes, though Levi was much better at masking his grief than Jack. Or, rather, as Levi once told him, “I don’t mourn, but I do regret that we can’t spend the rest of our lives together.”

“Miss Aly, Mister Gilbert, Mister Vincent,” called the governess from the doorway.

Like Jack had taught them, the children dutifully chirped, “Good morning, Miss Lottie,” but Aly had to poke Gilbert and Vincent to follow her out the room. They filed past Levi on their exit and he planted a firm kiss on top of each of their heads.

“I don’t wanna go,” Gilbert muttered, snatching two rolls from the table as he left (another habit formed from a life of scarcity; even though they never lacked at the Baskerville Manor, Gilbert always took extra food for him and Vincent, despite the Miss Lottie frowning upon eating during lessons.)

Levi tried the best parenting technique in his repertoire: blatant bribery. “If Miss Lottie tells me you’ve done well, everyone will get an extra dessert tonight.”

“Even Alice? She never behaves and she ain’t even here.”

Aly poked Gil in the center of his back. “Don’t you _dare_ talk about Alice that way.”

“Behave, all of you,” said Miss Lottie, herding the children out.

Levi poked at the remaining food on his plate before Jack cupped his chin and stroked the older man’s bottom lip with his thumb. “You should stop that, you know,” he muttered. “Pretending that you’ve over things. It’s affecting everyone.”

Levi scoffed, turned his face away and pushing the plate simultaneously. “I’m not pretending anything. At least I don’t seal myself away from the household only to make cameo appearances in people’s lives.” His shoulders slumped. “I miss her, but I miss you too.”

He stood, and suddenly grabbed Jack by the lapels and kissed him, passionately. A fire stirred inside, and Jack clenched Levi’s jacket, letting their mouths linger momentarily before letting go. That same flush covered his cheeks and he was reminded how much Lacie loved it when Jack was provoked, by her or by her other husband. “It reminds me how you can still look so innocent at times,” she’d cackle.

“See Alice, but don’t forget me either.” Levi’s footsteps echoed behind him.

***

“Alice?” A tentative knock.

A momentary silence, and then the door clicked as it unlocked. Jack was always her favorite out of all of her parents. He found her huddled on the bed, petting Cheshire and holding Oz tight against her chest. Jack smiled at seeing the stuffed rabbit. Lacie had owned the pair since girlhood and the second — named Wiz — was in Aly’s keeping.

“Nightmares again?”

A subtle nod and her grip on Oz tightened. “I saw her pulled apart,” she whispered, gazing blankly out the window. “And then she fell into this dark pit and she was drowning…”

“You know that it isn’t true.”

“I can’t help it, though.”

Duchess Lacie Baskerville, the kingdom’s most intelligent and headstrong matriarch. A formidable woman, rich and successful enough to keep two husbands. She was on a diplomat’s journey to foreign lands when the ship she sailed wrecked itself on distant shores over two years ago.

Jack settled next to her and she leaned against him. Cheshire, who was never fond of Jack, shrugged off her hand and hopped down to slink off into the far corner of the room.

“I keep having dreams that this didn’t happen. That Mommy would return, and she’d say that it was a mistake and…”

“Me too.” He followed Alice’s gaze outside the tower window, toward the main road leading toward the estate.

“She’s be on her favorite stallion and dressed in robes,” Alice said.

“She’d be leading a caravan of riches.”

“And exotic knights who had pledged their lives to serving her.”

“She’d admonish me for making a political mess of things in court, and Levi for getting the household accounts all wrong.” A chuckle.

“She’d laugh and give us all hugs and say that she never meant to be gone for this long.”

Jack let Alice embrace him, squishing Oz between them in their hug. The sobs lasted for awhile awhile, and Jack wiped the tears from both their faces afterwards.

“Sometimes,” Alice said, “I forget what her face looks like. I mean, I have pictures, but I don’t know what she looks like without them. And that scares me.” A pause. “Don’t tell Aly I said that.”

“I won’t.” Jack kissed the top of her head. He wouldn’t say it gets better, but at least it gets more bearable. Lacie had left their world, but the world went on. They all had to learn how to cope with that.

“Better?” Another nod. Alice walked to the windowsill and plunked Oz next to the glass. “I know it’s silly, but it makes me feel better knowing he’s on watch.”

Jack gave a half-smile and wrapped an arm around her shoulders as they went downstairs. “I’m sure he’d be the first one to tell us too.”


End file.
